The Hurry Up and Wait Job
by Sprite91360
Summary: Things don't go quite as planned and Eliot gets left behind.


Leverage

The Hurry Up and Wait Job

"Nathan!" The growled voice, low and soft, cut through the chatter of other voices in Nate's head.

"Eliot?"

"You know that part of the plan that goes 'Eliot takes out the guards here'. Ain't gonna happen, son."

The other chatter stopped. Nate could still hear Sophie, but her comments had changed from questions to the mark to letting the man do all the talking.

"Eliot, are you sure?"

"Get 'em out, Nate."

Nate paused, willing himself to see what Eliot saw. "All right, you heard the man. Fall back to the rendezvous position. What can we do, Eliot?"

"Cut off my ear bud, man."

Nate pressed his lips together and nodded to Hardison. "Do it." Then he pulled out his ear bud, holding it in a clenched fist. "I want to be able to hear him. Just me. But I don't want him to hear me. Can you do that?"

Hardison blinked. "Yeah." Hardison fiddled with the bud before giving it back.

Nate held up a finger, stopping Hardison from saying any more, then slipped the bud back in place. "Eliot."

"Yeah."

Nate didn't like the resigned sound in Eliot's voice, but what else was there to say? So many things came to mind, but none crossed his lips. He listened as Sophie made a polite bow out from the mark. She needed to powder her nose. Parker didn't make excuses she just bluntly stated, "I have to go." He could hear just when Hardison stopped tapping on his laptop and a click in his ear told him all the other buds were off line. And all the other voices in his head stopped. Except his own. Screaming at him to do something. He clenched his fists. He wished for a drink.

"You did it?" Nate pointed to the ear bud in his ear.

"Yeah, man, it ain't right though. We can't leave El…"

Nate cut him off. "Get the girls and get out. Make sure they're safe. One thing he won't worry about."

Hardison stood, his laptop under his arm. "Him or you?"

"Both. Go. Text when you're safe."

"Where will you be?"

Nate touched his ear. Listening. Listening to Eliot.

Hardison noticed a flinch. Something was happening on the other end of the ear bud. "He's gonna think we left him."

"I'm hoping he knows we won't. But mostly, he's going to want to know we're safe. That's always been his job. To keep us safe. Go, Hardison."

Hardison nodded. Pain plain as day on his face.

Nate waited. In his mind's eye he could follow Hardison down the elevator; muttering and cursing the whole way. Sophie would be calm; schmoozing the crowd a little. Making a smooth exit and not attracting any attention. Parker was probably in a stairwell. She'd be moving swiftly and quietly and, knowing Parker, she'd be repelling down the inside of the stairwell.

It was quiet and his mind raced. Had he missed something? There were no grunts or curses. Was the ear bud working? He needed to move. This was not the optimum location. He checked the room. One last sweep. Nothing left behind. "All right!" growled in his ear. He closed his eyes, over come with relief. Then nearly laughed. How could he feel relief in this situation? He could see Eliot. Maybe jerking his arm away from someone. Maybe being directed down, or up, a flight of stairs. Maybe into a room. But it was good to hear that pissed off drawl.

"Sit." It was muffled. Coming from someone else in the room. The unmistakable sound of handcuffs ratcheting as they locked down. Four times. Eliot was being handcuffed to something. A table or a chair. Nathan closed his eyes as he listened to the brief struggle as Eliot checked his bonds. A chair. He could hear the legs hit the floor.

"What is your name? What were you doing in that corridor?" This new voice was silky smooth. An accent that Nate couldn't quite place. He needed to get out of here and somewhere else. Somewhere he could think, plan and maybe help Eliot, if that were possible.

"Look, son, I was just wandering around, you know. That bash down stairs was kinda, well, you know, duller than dirt." Nate grinned despite himself. That good ol' southern boy charm was being laid on thick. Nate pushed the button for the elevator. His cell phone chimed. He looked at the text. "Girls in car. Headed out."

He replied "k" and stuck the phone back in his pocket.

He wanted a bar. Dark, quiet, where you can sit in a corner and nurse a beer for an hour and no one gives you any grief. Instead, he chose the Barnes and Nobles across the street and down the block. He'd nurse a tall Chai tea instead. Eliot needed him clear headed.

"You don't expect me to believe that do you? Tell me who you are. Why you are here?"

"Ain't nobody, son. Just a good ol' boy. What's that?" The cuff chains clinked, the chair scraped on the floor.

"A little something to help make you talk, yes? You will tell me what I want to know."

"Like hell," Eliot growled.

"Come, come. In time, you will tell me all I want to know." The voice was condescending, and very close to Eliot's ear. Nate's breath caught as he wondered if the man had found the ear bud.

"I'll tell you the truth," Eliot said back, soft and slow. "And I'll tell you a load a crap, too. Good luck figuring out which is which."

Nate could just see that evil smile of Eliot's. The one that showed his teeth. Just the way a shark would.

"I see neither of us are amateurs. Good."

There was silence for just a minute. "The drugs will take just a few minutes to loosen his tongue. Soften him up for me."

"I'll loosen a few of your teeth! Unlock me for just ten seconds."

Nate walked down the busy street. It was early evening. People going home mixing with the dinner crowd. Things would start to thin out soon. The bookstore seems almost frigidly cold compared to the high humidity of the evening air. He picked up a large paperback book of word searches. Challenging, but not too. He got a newspaper and, at the last minute, picked up a thriller prominently displayed at the checkout counter. He paid cash. He made idle chatter with the girl taking his cash. All the while he did all he could to keep from wincing at each grunt and exhalation Eliot made in his ear.

He went up to the café and ordered a large low-fat Chai and a muffin. The blows kept coming in his ear. His stomach clenched in sympathy.

He chose a seat away from the windows, laid out the things he bought and dug a pen from his inside pocket. For all intents and purposes he looked to be a man whiling away an hour or two. He just hoped two hours from now this would be over.

He toyed with his pen, making it look like he was working the crossword puzzle. The words he wrote in the boxes had nothing to do with the clues.

He didn't know fighting tactics the way Eliot did. Why did Eliot surrender rather than fight? He'd seen Eliot battle more than one person at the same time, well, one right after the other, was what Eliot said. It was easier to fight more than one than one sometimes. You could use one against the other. So if it wasn't numbers, then what?

Handgun? He wrote the word in a box with seven spaces. The clue was tote or clutch, but that didn't matter. He wasn't really working the puzzle. Would a handgun have stopped Eliot? Beyond the literal meaning? What was it Eliot said? Guns had a limited range of efficacy. If someone were closer than 30 feet Eliot could step in and disarm, more, he'd evade. Maybe more than one gun?

Nate thought about the layout of the corridor where Eliot had been taken. Parker was up one floor, waiting for the all clear to open the safe. Up stairs. Nate said the words and then slowly wrote it in the crossword. Filling out the boxes in a jagged line like the stairs themselves. Up stairs. Someone must have been on the next floor up, and holding not a handgun, but a rifle aimed over the blacony. Eliot couldn't guard himself and Parker from a man with a rifle from a floor below.

Nate sighed. Eliot had done the only thing he could do. He surrendered with the hope of getting Parker away safe and getting himself away later.

"That's enough." This came from the smooth voice again. "Are we prepared to answer a few questions?"

Eliot was breathing hard. "I don't know, are we?"

"What is your name?"

"Adam, Ben, Charlie, David, Eliot," there was a pause and a deeper breath. "Frank."

"Enough."

Nate could hear the frustration in the man's voice.

"Who do you work for?"

Nate expected a curse, but prayed Eliot wouldn't give them up just yet. Truth drugs were notoriously unreliable. A practiced liar could beat them. But Eliot didn't practice much.

"The government." Eliot words were a bit slurred in Nate's ear.

"Which government?"

Eliot chuffed a laugh. "Any of 'em. All of 'em. Hell, son, who ever pays the best."

There was a slapping sound. Nate wasn't quite sure if Eliot had been slapped, but it sounded more like a tabletop.

"And who paid you to come today?"

"Your mama. She ain't happy with you."

This time it was certainly Eliot that was slapped. An open handed noise, not a punch.

"You don't know me."

"You think so? Born in Israel, fought in Turkey. Decided you liked stealing better than you liked fighting. I know just who you are. And if you think I'm the only one coming for you, son, you got another think coming."

Nate grabbed his phone and dialed. Hardison picked up on the first ring. "Hardison. Search the employees of GreyCom. Not sure if he's in security or something else. Israeli born then moved to Turkey. I don't know how Eliot knows, but he does."

"I'm on it."

"Text me back."

"Hang on, it won't take but a couple of minutes."

"I don't want you in my ear. I … text me." He hung up. He knew Hardison just wanted to know what was going on, but Nate didn't have time right now. Knowledge was power, but he couldn't listen to Hardison as he read things he found on the screen, and he was desperately afraid Parker or Sophie would want to talk, too. Now was not the time for a team briefing.

What had he missed? What was GreyCom hiding that they hadn't found in the information sweep? He dug out his cell phone again. "Hardison, I need you to bring me a car and a laptop. I need access to all the GreyCom info."

"Yeah, okay, I can do that, not a prob. But how does this help Eliot?"

Nate rubbed at his eye. "Park the car as close to the front door of the Barnes and Nobles as you can. Don't use a handicap spot or anything. I can't risk getting towed."

"I'm on it. What else?"

"Nothing else." Nate hung up and turned back to the conversation in his ear.

"So, Adam Ben-Charlie," the man said it like it was a Middle Eastern title. "You know who I am and I know you work for some government agency. Why are you here at GreyCom?"

"No reason. Just at the party."

Nate strained, but he couldn't hear anything. Either the man was pondering Eliot's answer, or Eliot had clenched his jaw and the other man's words weren't making it into the ear bud.

Nate broke the muffin apart and looked around the little café. In the advent of home computers and 24 hour TV it always pleased him that bookstores still existed. And on some level had stopped being refuges for the nerds and become somewhat trendy. Now they came with designer coffee and soft chairs. Of the twenty or so tables around him, fourteen were full and two were waiting to be bussed. There were three young, twenty-something women, up at the counter, waiting for their order.

The silence in his ear bothered him, until he heard just a faintly slurred, "No.".

Eliot was still with him, but his voice was softer. Nate could tell the drugs had taken effect. The drugs didn't make you tell the truth, but they made it harder to lie.

The girls took the table two over from him, their high-pitched chatter easy to block out. His cell phone beeped and he flipped it open.

An email from Hardison stated: I think.

Seth Osman. There were six aka's. The man was a chemical engineer. Why did GreyCom, a technology software company need a chemical engineer on its payroll? And why did a chemical engineer need hired goons and guns?

Nate flipped down to the résumé and job application. Osman was hired on as a mid level accountant. He wasn't high enough up the chain to do anything with GreyCom's financials that Nate could see from these files.

Nate's mind was whirling. Was Osman part of GreyCom? Or was this separate criminal activity within the corporation?

Something flickered out the corner of his eye and he recognized Sophie, still in that slinky black Vera Wang dress she had been wearing at the GreyCom function. The fact that he recognized the designer bothered him a little.

Osman was asking questions of Eliot again, and Eliot was giving amazingly vague answers.

"Nate," her words were smooth, and held that tone that was both pitying and un-accusatory. It made Nate want to reach for a double scotch. All he had was tea, so he reached for that instead.

"Not now, Sophie."

"I just brought the laptop and the car is out front. What can we do to help?"

"Nothing yet, Soph."

There was another slap in his ear.

"Nate, you can't do this alone. You don't have to do this alone. We all want help. Let me go back in there, create a distraction. Let Hardison set off the fire alarms."

"Sophie, I've thought of all these things."

"For the love of heaven," Sophie hissed as she leaned closer over the back of the chair opposite. "Nate, call the police and we'll get him away from them."

"Sophie, I don't have time for this right now."

"Do you think I won't kill you for the information I want?" Osman was speaking in the cold, calm tones that told Nate he was telling the truth.

"If you kill me, you won't get any information." Eliot said back. Nate didn't like how calm Eliot was either. He was waiting for the rage and fury that Eliot was known for.

"Nate, you can't control this situation. Not from out here." She pulled out the chair to sit, and he rose. Stopping her.

His hands shook. His stomach clenched. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I know that he's there because of me?" He hissed the words at her, trying to keep his voice as low as possible. "Don't you think…The one and only thing I can control in this situation is you. You and Parker and Hardison. Eliot's one goal is to keep you all safe. If I get any of you hurt saving him, he'll never forgive me. He sure as hell won't trust me. I'm not completely sure he trusts me now. I can't take the risk."

"Nate." That oh-so-understanding tone was back.

"Sophie, not now." He knew he was making a scene, but he couldn't stop his voice from rising. "Please, go home. I have to worry about him, now, not you."

She looked around, taking in the co-eds and worker-bees looking at her. "Of course," she paused, her mind trying to say something to cover them. "He's your son, and he's sick. Of course, you need to be there for him. I'm being selfish." She put the car keys on top of the laptop.

Nate felt the bile rise in his throat. Did she know what she was saying? How those particular words would cut?

She pushed the chair back in. "When this is all over, call me." She left, leaving him standing, red-faced and hands clenched. He noticed people looking away. That awkward moment when they didn't want to be caught watching a spectacle.

He sat heavily in his chair. He ran a hand through his hair and then leaned heavily on his elbows, staring down at the file from Hardison. He wasn't seeing anything except the face of the man in the locked room with Eliot.

His stomach was knotting and his mouth felt dry. If anything happened to the crew, Eliot would blame him. If he didn't use the team and anything happened to Eliot everyone else would blame him. He was screwed either way. "You have to get out of this, Eliot." Nate muttered. "Tell me what to do."

It was the silences that unnerved him the most. Used to having three or more people in his ear, used to Hardison and his running commentary. Sophie charming her way in to a room. When it was quiet in his ear, he had too much time to think.

Time to think of all the things gone wrong, going wrong. Where was Eliot? What was he doing? What was this Seth Osman doing? And why?

Nate flipped open his word search game and circled words. Some of them not in the list.

"I think the drugs are working, now, yes?"

"Yeah, I think they are." Eliot drawled back. His words were slower. Nate could hear a long drawn out exhalation.

"Good." Osman's voice was closer now. He could imagine the man sitting across a table from Eliot. "I think perhaps I must ask very specific questions of you."

There was a long pause.

"Was that one of those questions? Cuz if it was, I missed it."

Nate grinned, and covered it with a sip of his tea. Smartass.

"What is the name of the company you work for?"

"Well, it's not like we have business cards." Another pause. "Although I think we did, before we had to blow up our office."

"You blew up your own office?"

"Sure did. Shit happens."

Nate was surprised by the lack of venom in Eliot's voice, but then he remembered the truth drugs.

"Why are you here at GreyCom?"

"Mostly getting intel on Montgomery, but hey, you came on the radar so…Is it hot in here?"

Nate registered the non-sequitur by circling the word thermal on his word search.

"Who are you with? Mexicans? Columbians? Salvadorians? Ah."

Eliot must have flinched or shifted in his chair for Osman to have made that conclusion. And Eliot had probably done it on purpose.

"And what is your task here?"

"I do whatever is needed."

"You're a cleaner for the Salvadorians! This is insane. I am not competing with them. My drugs have nothing to do with the heroin or cocaine Markets. These are so different."

"Hey man, tell me something to tell them. I'll, you know, make a case for you, if you can convince me."

"My drugs are designer. Do you know what that means?" Osman's voice was getting louder and fainter. Nate could only assume he was pacing. "It means nothing needs to be grown or shipped or smuggled in. I do not need some dark dingy warehouse or back alley basement. I can make it…"

"Here?"

"Yes, here. Or in your living room."

"Not my living room, bubba."

"Well, yes, not your living room, but you get the idea, yes? I am not competing with the cocaine and the heroin."

"Good to know. Uncuff me, and I'll tell my …co-workers."

There was a long silence. Those long silences he hated so very much. "All of you, out of the room!" The anger was back and Nate could feel it crackling over the ear bud. "Co-workers? You do not work for the Salvadorians, do you? And you are not going to tell me the truth anytime soon, are you?"

The words faded out.

"How about I give you a practical demonstration of what my little creation can do? Of course, you will not feel the high for long. At this dose, you'll be dead inside ten minutes But perhaps your body will send a message for me."

"Like hell!" There was a roar in his ear and the sound of metal on metal and all Nate could think to do was pack up his things and get to his car.

There was crashing, the sound of a struggle, the noises that Nate had come to recognize all too well. Swearing came, too, not just Eliot, but Osman. "I don't think so!" Then silence. Then breathing, deep lungfuls of air, being sucked in. Nate tossed everything in his hands in the passenger seat and started the ignition. He didn't know if Eliot would come out the front door, but it seemed as good a place as any to start. Was the party still on? Would there be people in the lobby?

Nate tried to listen and concentrate on driving at the same time. The silence followed by that strange thick sound of fist hitting body, the grunt and groan on impact, the distinct, unique sound of a boot against a body. Doors opened and the slow hiss as they closed. Stair well. Nate pulled to the curb in front of GreyCom's offices. He didn't bother to turn on the laptop, knowing the start up process would be too slow. He couldn't remember the layout of the building. Damn it! He dialed the phone.

"Yeah?"

"Hardison, put Parker on the phone." He waited. Footsteps in his left ear, over the cell phone, walking. Footsteps in his right, on the ear bud, running.

"Nate?" Her voice was soft and kind of whispery. Worry.

"Parker, which side of the building do the fire escape stairs come out?"

"Eastside, near the corner of Harrison Avenue." Bless Parker; she didn't waste time on questions. "Is Eliot…?"

He hung up, merging back into the light evening traffic and turning the corner. He could hear the breathing in his ear get heavier. Eliot was sucking in huge, deep breaths. The door burst open just ahead of him and Nate pulled along the curb.

Eliot looked wild eyed for just a second. Nate pushed the button on the window. "Come on!"

Eliot grabbed for the door handle, jerking it open. He reached in to toss the laptop into the back seat, but the handcuff was still hooked to a chair arm. Nate did it for him. Two men burst out the door Eliot had just come through.

Nate pulled away from the curb, slow and easy, merging into traffic and drove away.

"Did you dismember a chair?"

"I did." Eliot held up one hand and tried for a second to feed the bits of the chair arm through the cuff. When it didn't go, he gave up.

"Are you hurt?"

"Huh?"

"Do you need an ambulance? A doctor?"

Eliot seemed to take stock for a minute. He flexed his wrists and flexed his fingers. "Nah, I think I'm okay."

Nate glanced away from the road. Eliot was bruised. His face bloody, his wrist torn and bleeding.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, ain't nothing broke. I can fix the rest."

"What the hell happened?"

"Guns." Eliot spit out the word. "And they stayed far enough back I couldn't grab 'em. And if I'd tried to run, Parker woulda been in the crossfire. She got out okay?"

"Yes. They all did." Nathan took his eyes off the road long enough to give Eliot a quick once over. Eliot's cheek was puffy and red, the eye swelling shut. Eliot pressed his sleeve against his lip, the handcuff and chair arm dangling.

"So, I went along, waited for the time. You know, I don't think that guy -"

"Osman," Nate added, passing his handkerchief across.

"Osman?" Eliot thought the name over, squinting. "Anyway. He's not just running drugs, I think he's a manufacturer. What are they called?" Eliot pressed the white square against his lip and held it there.

"Designer drugs?"

"Yeah. Nate?"

"Exactly how did you get out of there?" Nate deflected. He hoped between the drugs and misdirect Eliot wouldn't put together, at least too soon, that Nate had been listening in.

Eliot jiggled his free hand, the cuffs rattling against the chair arm. "I had to wait until the gun guy was out of the room, so I kinda had to wind the bad guy, uh, Osman, up a bit." Eliot squinted again, his quick mind working out that Nate knew the name and he didn't.

"And?" Nate changed lanes, checking his mirrors. He didn't think he was being followed, but always better to be safe.

"Uhm."

"The chair?" Nate helped the story along. "What did it do to you?"

Eliot huffed a laugh. "Ow." He pulled the handkerchief away from his lip, examined the bloodstain, then put it back. "If you stand on the seat and pull up, the weakest part of the chair is the arms. Hopefully they give way before yours do." He rolled his shoulders and squirmed against the seat as if just realizing his neck and shoulders hurt.

"We need to stop Osman. If we can catch him up in the sweep with GreyCom, so much the better."

"He didn't walk away from this." Eliot looked out the side window, into the dark. "I think he OD'd on his own stuff. Or slipped and fell on his syringe."

Nate nodded. The car fell silent, just the hum of tires on pavement.

"Are you hurting? What do you need?"

"Bandages, ice, ibuprofen, antibiotic cream, a cold bath and a hot shower." He held up his cuffed hand again. "A lock pick."

Nate grinned, amused at how talkative Eliot was. "Is that all?

"A day off, man. Seriously. I can't go on like this, Nate. I'm not the freaking wolverine."

"Wolverine?" Nate checked over his shoulder to merge off the highway. It was only minutes from the safe house. "You've been hanging out with Hardison for too long."

Eliot looked out the window. "Sorry man, I'm just tired. I need some sleep."

"I thought you only needed 90 minutes a day."

Eliot snorted. He probably slept more than any of them. His body needed rest to recover from what he put it through. Parker surveyed buildings at night. Sophie practiced accents and memorized obscure facts about countries. Hardison played on line web games. And Nate, he just didn't sleep well.

Nate sighed. Eliot sighed. They were both resigned sounds.

"Look, I just don't want for you to be disappointed with what I did." He cleared his throat and put the handkerchief on the seat between them. "That, you know, I couldn't finish the job."

Nate looked left out the window, his throat tight.

"Sorry, man. That's just the sodium pentothal talking." Eliot shrugged.

"Eliot, I never…I…damn." Nate looked anywhere but where Eliot was sitting beside him. "I never have a plan B where you are concerned. I'll work on that."

Eliot was staring out the window again. "Okay." He shifted against the seat back again. "And next time I say take out the ear bud, I mean it. Okay?"

"I'll work on that, too." He pulled up to the curb and parked.

Eliot nodded. "One favor."

Nate steeled himself, hoping it was something he could do. "Yes?"

"Keep Sophie off me till the drugs wear off. She can already get me talking as it is."

"Will do." He smiled. "Damn."

Eliot opened the door of the car, sucking in a deep breath, hoping the cool air would help clear his head from the fuzzy, cotton feeling. "What?"

Nate looked at Eliot across the roof of the car. "What's Sophie's real name?"

"I'm not that far gone, man, but, hey, nice try."

"Eliot. We good?"

"Yeah, Nate."

Nate watched as Eliot walked up the stairs. His shoulders were slumped, and he had a hitch in his step as he favored his left side.

Parker threw open the front door and was down the stairs in a flash. "You're alright!" She threw her arms around his neck and almost pitched them both backwards down the stairs.

"Damn it, Parker!"

Nate could see Hardison and Sophie in the doorway. He could do this. He could work it out. All he needed was time and information. He could do this.


End file.
